Letter 8021: If I could erase my previous letter by writing a better one, I would multiply my pages endlessly — always improving,...
Ennodius of Pavia→Beatus, Chancellor|c. 510 AD|Ennodius of Pavia
friendship
From: Ennodius, deacon in Pavia
To: Beatus
Date: ~510 AD
Context: A letter lamenting that writing cannot erase past letters — Ennodius would multiply his correspondence if he could.
Ennodius to Beatus.
If I could erase my previous letter by writing a better one, I would multiply my pages endlessly — always improving, always correcting. But the written word, once sent, has a life of its own, and we must live with what we have committed to paper.
Accept what I send, imperfections and all, as the honest product of an imperfect but devoted friend. Farewell.
XXI. ENNODIVS BEATO.
Si possem scribendo delere paginam meam, multiplici hoc
facere intentione procurarem. sed quia non est fas hominem
non errare, ego ille canus, sed pater tuus, ne umquam prioris
epistolae meae sis memor, exposco: sic te pater et patria talem,
qualem per singulos dies omnibus protestor, excipiat. alienis
scriptis credidi, ut stili mei inportuna festinatione morderem.
tu feceras quod sapiens, qui soli domno Probo arcem tenenti
inter doctos uersus meos relegeras, quod facere decuit. ego
inportunus, qui alteri credere non debuissem, quantum uideo,
frustra commotus sum. uade ergo ad domnum Probum (sic
pater tuus uiuat, sic me, quem semper amasti, uiuentem audias),
quia ista pene mortuus dictaui, et osculare illi genua pro me
et dic illi de illo extremo uersu: Terentianus me induxit in
illo exemplo,
Sic fatur lacrimans, classique immittit habenas.
omnia tamen, quae fuerunt digna correctione, praeuidit. saluto
amore quo debeo. si euasero, emendo uersus ipsos et sic dirigo.
nam litteras tuas, quas per infantem Rufinum direxisti, Iulio
mense suscepi: unde me contigit nescire quod actum fuerat,
ut taliter mouerer.
◆
From:Ennodius, deacon in Pavia
To:Beatus
Date:~510 AD
Context:A letter lamenting that writing cannot erase past letters — Ennodius would multiply his correspondence if he could.
Ennodius to Beatus.
If I could erase my previous letter by writing a better one, I would multiply my pages endlessly — always improving, always correcting. But the written word, once sent, has a life of its own, and we must live with what we have committed to paper.
Accept what I send, imperfections and all, as the honest product of an imperfect but devoted friend. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.